The New York Citizen Journalism Meetup

Looking for other like minded citizen journalists/photo journalists? Join the new New York Citizen Journalism Meetup. "Meet other local people interested in all aspects of citizen journalism -we are looking for active and budding citizen journalists (text, photo and video), entrepreneurs in the space and big and small, for-profit and not-for-profit, media houses or social networking services who are current running or are interested in building citizen Journalism or related initiatives."

Workshops and Contests

Sony sponsors two day workshops throughout the US. Learn more about what your camera can do (and you can do with your camera) in Minneapolis, Miami, Dallas, Atlanta, Westchester County or San Francisco. More dates and locations to be added throughout the year.

Popular Photography magazine sponsors a monthly contest as well as keeps tabs on other photography contests.

Photo Contest and Citizen Media in the News

Intercontinental Insights announces a photo contest. Check their site beginning March 21st, 2007.

BusinessWeek is not sure that local sites offering citizen generated media can work. Backfence (the company mostly referred to in this article) did not have a wide market- offering local sites in a few DC, IL and CA suburbs - many of which already have a local paper of sorts. One anecdote does not make a trend.

Citizen Image announces deal with PixPulse

Pixpulse users may now sell their newsworthy photos, text and video content through Citizen Image's platform. When uploading their content to Pixpulse, users will be able to choose to upload their content to Citizen Image, which will in turn offer the images for sale. Users will receive a share of profits of any sales generated. Citizen journalism is enjoying a surge of popularity. As Citizen Image CEO, Feargall Kenny, said "Because no news organization can plan to cover news events they cannot anticipate, increasingly they are embracing 'citizen journalism' content in all its forms--text, images and video."

Citizen Image releases ciSyndicate

"Citizen Image(TM) (www.citizenimage.com) today announced the availability of ciSyndicate(TM), an innovative platform that transforms the millions of people who share pictures over social networks and photo sharing websites into an instant corps of citizen photojournalists. ciSyndicate is a web-services based solution for these social network websites that seamlessly lets its users opt-in their photography and video content for sale by Citizen Image to photo editors and media buyers around the world."

Getty Images enters the Citizen Marketplace

Getty Images announced today (March 12) that they have purchased Scoopt, the Scottish based citizen photojournalism site. The purchase and Getty's entry into the citizen-based photography market will bring a new validity to the trend. Expect to see more and more main-stream media using citizen generated photos.

An interesting twist

The French government has banned the reporting of violence by citizen journalists. Interestingly, they are considering legislation to give some kind of certification to websites, bloghosts, and other purveyors of media. Reporters Without Borders is concerned that the certification could be a threat against citizen journalism.

Thanks Ed for the heads up!

Photo Contest

Caribbean Travel & Life is looking for your best photos taken in the Caribbean, Bahamas or Bermuda. Deadline is June 8th. Contest is open only to amateur photographers. (Those who make less than 10% of their income from photography)